Hierarchically Porous TiO₂ Photocatalyst Prepared by Additive Manufacturing and Dealloying for Highly Efficient Photocatalytic Degradation of Tetracycline

Abstract

Hierarchically porous photocatalysts exhibit superior light-harvesting capacity and enhanced photocatalytic activity. In this work, a facile method by combining additive manufacturing (AM) and dealloying was employed to prepare a hierarchically porous photocatalyst, namely, nanoporous-TiO 2 -encapsulating macroporous-double-gyroid-structure photocatalyst (TiO 2 @DGS). It was found that TiO 2 @DGS possessed deterministic macropores and interconnected nanopores, which offered efficient mass transfer channels and abundant active sites, respectively. Thus, TiO 2 @DGS showed excellent photocatalytic capability under ultraviolet− visible (UV−vis) light irradiation and achieved a tetracycline degradation efficiency of over 90% within 60 min (photocatalytic rate constant k = 4.0 × 10 −2 min −1 ). Furthermore, TiO 2 @DGS exhibited excellent durability and reusability due to its stable threedimensional structures. This work not only exemplifies the high performance of the prepared TiO 2 @DGS for environmental remediation but also provides an innovative approach to introduce tailored macrostructures into hierarchically porous photocatalysts through the incorporation of AM and dealloying.